“Your time is limited, so don’t waste it living someone else’s life.” Thanks, Steve.
Time management for parents
MIkael Lindberg | Oct 10 2007
The excellent news that Merlin is joining the parent flock prompted me to write this post. I became a parent about a year ago and I've been battling the "loss" of about 8-16 hours of every day to parenting and the unpredictability element that babies bring to your schedule. I'm interested in hearing what other parents have done in order to keep a grip on their schedule and their lives. For me, the most extreme effect was that I decided to change jobs in order to do something I really like, despite having to take a 50% pay cut. I just can't afford to waste hours doing things that doesn't make me happy. I've also taken a few hints from Merlin and now carry a small note pad (sort of a hipster PDA) in my pocket at all times for capture purposes. I think my previous attempts at GTD has failed just because I havn't needed it enough. Now, I can't survive without it. As for handling the unpredictability element of children, my wife and I have a system where we try to never replan the current day schedule but instead handle exceptions as far into the future as possible. This keeps our schedules reasonably stable. What are your experiences? 58 Comments
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 Making the most of it...Submitted by MikeVardy on October 10, 2007 - 10:42am.
I'm actually in the throes of going through yet another change in my working life to better serve my family. When my daughter (now almost 3) was born I was working at a large company that I no longer had any interest in working for, but had a great wage and benefits package. I also was earning some income as a writer/performer on a freelance basis, and really wanted to be able to do that and be with my family - strike a balance of sorts. But that changed after listening to and learning from Jonathan Coulton (tremendously talented musician) and making the decision to move on from my less-than-stellar job and take a full stab at freelancing, while my wife continued to work as an acupuncturist/waitress and my daughter went off to daycare. That lasted for about a month, as money became tighter and I found a job working for a Mac dealer that I came across by accident. Also, my wife landed a sweet job as the resident acupuncturist at a local care clinic that enabled her to quit serving. All this while my daughter went to daycare, and I muddled through a few creative projects here and there. Then the daycare fell through after we tried to get our daughter into one closer to home. That daycare turned out to be not at all what we thought it was, and her previous daycare had already filled her spot. While we searched for a new provider, I came to the realization that half of my monthly income was going to daycare - and my wife and I made the call to have me scale back to part time in-store work (and my boss was generous enough to modify my position to allow me to telecommute to make up the balance of the 25 hours per week) and I would stay home with my daughter going forward. It was the best decision we could have made. The move has allowed me to spend more time with my family, enabled me to focus more on freelance work as well - and plan better as a result. We've also managed to take what used to be a very rushed daily routine and make it manageable by putting myself in a more domestic role. The stress levels have dropped (including my daughter's), and I've become far better at GTDing than ever before. I'll stress that, as Merlin has said, multi-tasking is a non-existent entity, and this is especially true when kids arrive. Focus will shift and you just have to be nimble. But I find it's easy whenever I remember who I'm ultimately doing it for. » POSTED IN:
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